


Diamante

by deedeeinfj



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 18:29:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7981738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deedeeinfj/pseuds/deedeeinfj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ruddy Gore" AU. Phryne continues home with Jack instead of ditching him to go with Lin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diamante

**Author's Note:**

> For Jen. 'Cause.

"Thank you, Mr. Lin, but Inspector Robinson was kind enough to offer to escort me home after a bit of a scare and a fall," Phryne said with a nod toward Jack. "Perhaps another time?"

The other gentleman bowed his head in acknowledgement, brought her hand to his lips, and kissed it. "Certainly another time, Miss Fisher. It would be my great pleasure."

He strode on past them, presumably to take care of some other business in that direction; Jack had his misgivings about the man and his dealings, and he attributed this to everything except jealousy.

"Are you hungry, though?" Jack asked as they resumed walking. "We could stop somewhere if you don't have anything waiting at home. My shift is over."

Phryne turned and offered him that maddening tilt of her eyelashes, her red mouth curling up. "Are you asking me to dinner, Detective Inspector?"

"No, not as such."

"Then I shall ask you," she said, undaunted. "You're welcome to come in for a bite when I reach home. It's the least I can do to repay your gallantry, and I'm sure there's some gratin to be had if we investigate the offerings thoroughly."

He huffed a quiet laugh in spite of himself. "It's not so much gallantry as it is not wanting another murder to deal with."

That was a lie, and they both knew it. As much as he was loathe to admit it, he liked her. He liked her too much. She fascinated him and amused him and impressed him and aroused him, and he also found himself in the curious position of realizing that she was his friend. If she continued insinuating herself into his work as determinedly as she did, she would be his partner.

He offered his arm, and she took it without a moment's hesitation. They fell into step easily. They always fell into step easily, didn't they?

"Thank you," she said, and he felt her fingers squeeze his arm. "I have something of an aversion to being saved, but it's much better than the alternative."

"Perhaps you can return the favor someday," he replied, smiling, "and then the score will be settled."

It had been somewhat jarring to see that she was human after all, as breakable as any other. She moved through the world with such force, both bull-headed and blithe, that seeing her briefly stunned beneath him was untenable. Having to help her up, to hold her hand, to kneel at her side and check her pupils as she reoriented herself - how could any of that be when she was superhuman? For all the qualities she possessed that placed her above mere mortals, however, she was still one of them. Never _mere_ , but certainly mortal.

"At least I discovered how to get you to say my name at last," she said. "Thought I'd never get it out of you. Then again, I was once told that names shouldn't be bandied about for one's own convenience."

Jack smiled at the street ahead. "It could have been worse. You might have had to wrestle an angel."

"Do you think I was the target, or was I mistaken for Miss Esperance? Am I the one who's next, as the note so helpfully warned, or is she the one we should be protecting?"

He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow. "We?"

"You're still trying to fight it. Lost cause, Jack."

He couldn't honestly say that he minded losing that particular cause, but he was far from admitting it to her. And why should he when the battles were so fun?

Fun.

When had anything in his life last been fun? Until very recently, that concept had seemed as foreign and far away as the trenches in Europe. Yet here it was, back in his life, as if it floated in on Phryne Fisher's feathers and perfume. It hung on her eyelashes like the diamantes she wore at the Green Mill. It teased from the corners of her lips and snuck in as dangerously as the knife in her garter. "You didn't see that," she'd told him in Miss Leigh's bookshop, but he had seen it, and he didn't want to go back to _not_ seeing it.

"Well?" she asked when they stood in her foyer. "Shall I feed you, Jack?"

Phryne draped her coat and hat on the hooks there, and the empty hooks seemed like fitting destinations for his own accoutrements. He answered her by lifting off his hat and hanging it beside hers. She grinned, victorious.

"Ah, there you are, Mr. Butler!" she exclaimed when that gentleman greeted them in time to take Jack's coat himself. "Is there food here befitting a gallant knight who saved a damsel's life?"

"I believe so, Miss." Mr. Butler motioned towards the kitchen. "Inspector?"

Once they had settled at the table in her kitchen, Mr. Butler laid out enough food, including the promised gratin, to feed a small army rather than one knight and a damsel. He took his leave, and Jack and Phryne tucked in. She wasn't very hungry, apparently, because she finished rather quickly and sat watching him, her small, pointed chin in her hand.

Jack looked up at her. "What are you thinking, Miss Fisher? It's unsettling when you're quiet."

"I'm wondering," she said slowly, tracing her finger around the rim of her tumbler, eyes trained on his, "what you were like before the war. Jack Robinson, young newlywed. The man your wife married."

"More lively, I suppose. Less grim."

"I don't find you grim at all."

His eyes darted to hers to find the telltale sparkles of teasing, but she seemed utterly sincere.

"I was more given to dancing and evenings out," he said. He spooned a second helping of gratin onto his plate. "Cycling, swimming, tennis, laughing. You might not believe it, but I even tried my hand at flirting."

Now her eyes did sparkle. "I believe it with my whole heart. And I'm guessing you were very good at it." She watched him eat for another few minutes, then said, "And the man who returned? The man your wife didn't marry?"

"You're looking at him. Withdrawn, grim, pessimistic, not greatly entertaining at card parties."

"I hate cards."

"'Dour' is another word I've heard used."

"What rot. I don't like dour people."

He hesitated, picking the edges of his food a bit with his fork. "Is that your way of saying that you like me?"

"Don't be ridiculous. My way is much more forthright." She laughed at his silence. "Of course I like you, Jack Robinson."

"If I'm too grim for my wife, I must be too grim for you," he said, but with a smile. "Look... look at you."

"What about me?" she asked.

There was weight in the question, and he felt it acutely. How could he express to her, without sounding like a sentimental fool, how she made everything brighter, more joyous, more alive? More _fun_?

"You're like sunlight. It follows you wherever you go." He set down his knife and fork and clasped his hands on the table. "Rather inappropriate at murder scenes and in morgues, but..."

She laughed, and he would have sworn in any court that her cheeks were pink. "And do you want to know what you're like, Jack?"

" _Do_ I want to know?"

"Candlelight. Not grim, but warm." Her eyes, thoughtful, traced over his face. "Mysterious and shadowy around the edges."

Something about this estimation of him made his heart move into his throat. Not a leap, per se, but a most definite shift.

He laid down his napkin. "Thank you very much for supper, Miss Fisher. Please pass on my compliments to Mr. Butler and Miss Williams."

"You're leaving?" she frowned.

"It's late."

It _was_ late, and the urge to kiss her - to do quite a bit more than kissing her - was something best tempered at a safer distance.

She followed him to the foyer and watched as he took his hat and draped his coat over his arm. He turned to wish her a good evening, but she stopped him with a hand on his lapel. She was making something of a habit of that, and he wished he could say with any measure of truth that he disliked it.

"Jack, I didn't know the man who went away to war. But I can say, based on our brief acquaintance, that the one who came back is... inestimable."

Swallowing hard, he set his hat on his head. "Thank you, Miss Fisher. Good night."

**Author's Note:**

> What? You know my penchant for writing short, random things, so you have only yourself to blame. ;-)


End file.
